Category Archives: Education

Which Core Education?

Posted on Thursday 17 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Conservatives want to install a particular kind of core education in universities; Now Trump threatens to tear down the Kennedy Center, if he can’t get his name on it; Brief items about praying for political success; Trump delusionally thinks the … Continue reading →

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Is the World Becoming Too Complex for Ordinary Human Cognition?

Posted on Monday 7 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The “time tax” and the unavoidable complexity of society; The value of liberal education; – – – Here’s more about the new book about the so-called “time tax.” The Atlantic, Adam Harris, today: How the Government Wastes Our Time, subtitled … Continue reading →

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Cognitive Overload?

Posted on Tuesday 25 August 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Is humanity suffering information overload? Why people hate data centers; Why people hate the government; Is this all about the increasing complexity of the world, and the limits of human cognition? Comments about Trump and Canada from Robert Charles Wilson … Continue reading →

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Kevin, Sean, Darline

Posted on Sunday 23 August 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Noting Kevin Kelly’s substack; David French, Sean Duffy, Harvard, and fear of corruption; World hunger is declining; How is Sharia Law worse than Christian Nationalism? (asking for a friend); Ignoramous Darline Graham pivots to a safe conservative target: trans kids. … Continue reading →

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What Education Is For; the End of Rational Discourse

Posted on Sunday 3 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The obvious reason conservatives are under-represented in universities; Adam Kirsch on Jürgen Habermas and the weightlessness of online existence; Conservatives’ double standard on speech about Trump and speech about everyone else; Short items on the popularity of “true-crime,” how Trump’s … Continue reading →

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Transcendence, and Science Fiction

Posted on Thursday 23 October 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Writers keep puzzling about the idea of transcendence and its association with religion; I’ve proposed an answer; Local news about federal agents in Alameda, near me, and how Trump called them off today; Heather Cox Richardson about the destruction of … Continue reading →

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More Items from the Authoritarian Playbook

Posted on Sunday 27 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

About the conservative agenda concerning colleges, and education; Charlie Kirk thinks you don’t need college; just watch YouTube videos, especially his own online courses; Education Secretary Linda McMahon admits her political motivations for dismantling her department; Brief items about a … Continue reading →

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David Brooks on Alasdair MacIntyre and How We Got to Where We Are

Posted on Tuesday 8 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

One item today. A long piece from David Brooks, trying to understand how we got here, given history. The Atlantic, David Books, 8 Jul 2025: Why Do So Many People Think That Trump Is Good?, subtitled “The work of the moral … Continue reading →

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Viewpoint Diversity and Consensus

Posted on Wednesday 16 April 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Jerry Coyne on Harvard vs the US government and the idea of “viewpoint diversity,” with a response by Steven Pinker; Why do conservatives think themselves under-represented in academia? Because they promote ideas that are not true; Will there ever be … Continue reading →

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Assault on and Rejection of Reality

Posted on Friday 11 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic on how things are much worse than a misinformation crisis; Meteorologists notice that ignorance is becoming socially acceptable — but this has always been true, as C.P. Snow noted; The Republican conspiracy theory that children … Continue reading →

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